Eliott Price Should be Dead

ten - don't mess this up for me

I'm watching Nigel and James say goodbye while sitting on the living room couch. I notice James give me a small glare and we make eye contact, but I quickly realize it was a nervous one because his cheeks flush again and he scurries out the door like I'm going to stab him with a steak knife.

"So, is he your boyfriend? Hook-up?" I ask Nigel as I spin a coaster around on the coffee table with my pointer finger.

I don't notice Nigel standing next to the couch until I look up from the prolonged silence after my question. His hands are balled in fists and his lips are pressed tightly together.

"He's shy," Nigel mumbles with a hint of anger.

"How the fuck was I supposed to know?" I tell Nigel while letting the coaster spin off the coffee table.

"I don't know. Just... please don't mess this up for me," Nigel pleads.

"How and why would I do that?" I ask Nigel with curiosity as I lean back against the couch with my arms loosely crossed at my chest.

"Fair warning. Just so you know, I guess, that this is important to me," Nigel tells me quietly as his fists un-ball.

"Okay," I say.

"Okay," Nigel says back, "maybe meeting James with a black eye and bruises wasn't the best first impression."

I roll my eyes so far back I kinda wish they'd get stuck.

"Not my problem," I tell him confidently.

"I'm surprised you're not dead," Nigel finally says before I hear his feet shuffle down the hallway and into his room, the door shutting.

I bite down on my lower lip as I think about what Nigel just said. I look over my shoulder a little further and see Kylie staring at me from behind the kitchen's half wall.

"Want to say something?" I ask Kylie who looks like a deer in headlights. She shakes her head no and takes a sip of coffee.

"I got beat up in an alleyway and then I tried to make it home, but I must have blacked out, because some nice man named Michael found me and walked me home," I confess to Kylie while playing with my fingers. I chuckle quietly to myself after I hear how ridiculous I sound.

Kylie nods slowly from her seat in the kitchen. Her hand reaches around to rub the back of her neck and I get up to sit down next to her at the kitchen table.

"So Nigel didn't come look for you?" Kylie asks me while her face wrinkles in worry.

I shake my head no.

"So... you just stayed there until that superman guy rescued you and walked you home?

I nod.

"Nigel came home around 8 with that guy James. I think it's nice he has someone. You know?" Kylie says while fiddling her coffee mug around in her hands.

"What about me?" I say with a defensive laugh, "I practically raised him. I held his fucking hand in public so he wouldn't just wander off."

Kylie tilts her head and gives me that look. That look which tells me everything up to this point was bullshit, "Or was he just in love with you and that's why he wanted you to hold his hand? He's an adult."

I slowly blink and look at the timer on the dishwasher that's placed in front of the kitchen table.

"Fuck," I mumble to myself.